


The Droid and The Boy

by SleepyKalena



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, The Dam Keeper AU, respect your fellow droids y'all!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 12:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13341246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: Somewhere in a far-off planet, there lived a newly-booted droid whose parts were as black as the night.In the evening when he was first booted, his programmed task coursed through his circuitry with one simple message: Be a dam keeper.“Why must I do this every morning?” he asked as his operating software finally booted him and his language programming.The Droid That Came Before Him looked into his optical sensors and said weakly, “To keep the darkness away.” His rotors sputtered as he played back the speech.aka: The Dam Keeper AU





	The Droid and The Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I took a nap and the plot bunny refused to leave me alone when I woke up.
> 
> Inspired (and based on) [The Dam Keeper](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4d76pc). If you haven't watched it yet, please do! Tonko House has some peak aesthetics and storytelling here.
> 
> Look at that, I even made a doodle to go with it:
> 
>  

Somewhere in a far-off planet, there lived a newly-booted droid whose parts were as black as the night.

In the evening when he was first booted, his programmed task coursed through his circuitry with one simple message: Be a dam keeper.

“Why must I do this every morning?” he asked as his operating software finally booted him and his language programming.

The Droid That Came Before Him looked into his optical sensors and said weakly, “To keep the darkness away.” His rotors sputtered as he played back the speech.

As the sun rose the next day, The Droid woke up from sleep mode, fully charged and ready to ask more questions to The Droid That Came Before Him.

But he found himself alone.

Regardless, The Droid carried on his task, like he was programmed to.

Each morning, like The Droid That Came Before Him, he wakes up in his small home, high up at the top of a mountain. He would open the blinds each morning, and look out the back window.

His house was, much like himself, a machine- a small machine attached to many other, larger machines called “wind turbines” that blew dark, dusty fog away from the mountain.

Each morning, he would go around to each of these large machines and replenish their energy, so that they could keep spinning.

And, each morning, it would mean that the village below him would continue to live safely and cleanly.

The Droid would do this, day in and day out, without fail.

After recharging the wind turbines, he would perform maintenance on himself to keep his joints fresh and his mind ready to learn with the sentients. He would leave his small house and board the cramped, lonely tram just outside his front door, and ride down the cables to the bottom to join the rest of the villagers.

The wheels squeaked as they traveled down the cables. He made a note to buy some grease to loosen it up.

The ride was short and quiet. It was different from the village, which was loud and full of giggling younglings getting ready for school.

In these homes were all different species, including humans. But they were mostly humans.

Everyone looked up at The Droid, who was so much taller than everyone else, and was black, unlike everyone else, and they cowered in fear.

He noticed parents encouraging their younglings to “come back inside the house, before you get hurt”. The sentients who were old enough to go to school looked at him with scrutiny.

Human younglings were the worst, though. They would throw mud at him, calling him “so black and dirty” that there was no hope of him ever being clean.

Still, The Droid continued to walk to school, wanting to learn the things the other sentients were learning.

Each morning, the village folk treated him this way, without fail.

And, each morning, he told himself that it was the price to pay for being a newly-booted droid. He was willing to bear it.

Today, however, was different.

A new student had moved into the village. A human boy. He had chubby cheeks like the rest of the schoolchildren, but there was something about his demeanor- and The Droid couldn’t figure out what it was- that made him popular with everyone else.

What he really wanted to focus on, though, was The Boy’s sketchbook.

As The Droid sat in the back of the classroom- the only place he could fit without blocking the view of the other students- he would sneak glances at The Boy’s sketchbooks. They were inventive for a child of his age: Twi’leks holding a lightsaber and fighting with Stormtroopers riding on dragons, ships sailing across galaxies that he was sure the boy had never traveled before, and drawings of his family.

The Boy’s popularity only grew with each new drawing he made, as he started to draw funny drawings of his classmates, and drawings making fun of the mean teachers in school. The younglings laughed and laughed with him.

The Droid could only continue watching the boy from afar, too shy to talk to him- the probability of The Boy throwing mud at him like the others was far too high to risk it. He preferred instead to admire distantly, so as to not ruin the image he had of The Boy.

Day after day, this continued, and he watched The Boy’s eyes light up with each drawing he made.

He found the sight pleasing.

One morning, as The Droid took his seat in the back of the classroom, he noticed a neatly-folded piece of paper peeking out from the inside of his desk. Gently, he took the paper out and unfolded it as the other students entered the classroom and sat down.

It was a drawing of a Mon Calamari, wide-eyed and drawn as a fish, flopping and splashing about wildly.

The history teacher.

The Boy took his seat towards the front of the classroom just then, and turned around to look at him expectantly. His face lit up when he saw that The Droid was holding his drawing.

As class began, the Mon Calamari teacher had continued his lecture yet again about the beginnings of the Galactic Republic, his arms flailing about as he animatedly spoke.

The Droid thought back to The Boy’s drawing and for the first time ever, The Droid accessed his laughter sequence, causing the whole class to freeze and turn around to look at him.

“My apologies,” he said to the teacher, who looked more shocked than angry at the laughing noise. He shifted his gaze to The Boy, who had clasped his hands over his mouth to keep from having a laughing fit.

The Droid found this sight even more pleasing.

At the end of the school day, however, The Boy left his sketchbook on his desk and went home without it.

It was strange behavior to The Droid; The Boy kept his sketchbook with him everywhere, no matter where he went.

So The Droid picked it up and decided to keep it safe for him.

The next day, The Droid continued to do his early morning duties, checking each wind turbine. Remembering that he took The Boy’s sketchbook home to keep it safe, he brought the sketchbook with him as he boarded the tram to head down to the village.

Being tall was a very good thing for The Droid, who found The Boy right away, looking sad as he walked towards the school.

He approached The Boy and tapped him on the shoulder, and as The Boy turned around, The Droid held out his sketchbook.

“You left this behind,” The Droid said. “I kept it safe for you.”

The Boy’s eyes list up and his chubby cheeks scrunched as he said, “Thank you so much! I thought I lost it for good!” The Boy grabbed the sketchbook and hugged it tightly.

They continued to walk to school, side by side, The Droid and The Boy.

This was new to The Droid.

He found the sight pleasing.

But apparently, none of his other classmates did.

After seeing The Droid walk to school with The Boy, they waited for recess to pelt him with more mud. “What are you doing hanging out with him?” they sneered, adding gravel to their mudballs this time around.

“You’re just a droid!” yelled another.

“Droids don’t hang out with cool guys like him!” screamed a third.

Physically, the mudballs didn’t hurt The Droid. Their strength was no match for the strength of his housing.

Inside, however, his empathy systems were becoming corrupt with each insult.

Shortly after recess ended, the mudballs dried and the sand was entering The Droid’s joints. So he got up and went to the restroom. No one cared if he stayed or left, and not even the teacher bothered to ask him where he was going.

As he patted at each of his joints with a damp cloth to get rid of the sand, he didn’t notice The Boy enter the bathroom.

“I saw what they did to you,” he said quietly.

The Droid stopped and looked at him. Finding no reasonable method of response to his statement, he simply turned back to pat at his joints.

“Can I help?” The Boy asked, approaching him slowly.

He stopped again and assessed his surroundings. There was no sand in this bathroom, and The Boy’s hands were clean. His pockets were empty, and no one else was in the bathroom but the two of them.

_Probability of The Boy also throwing mudballs at him: 0%._

The Droid nodded.

Once the sand had been cleaned up to the best of their abilities, The Boy took out his sketchbook from under his jacket, grabbed a pencil from his pocket, and started drawing.

It was a drawing of The Droid with a rain cloud over his head, washing away the dirt off him as he threw mudballs at the other sentients that were mean to him.

“You drew this for me,” The Droid said, more to himself than to The Boy.

The Boy nodded.

“Thank you,” The Droid responded, finally able to utilize his gratitude protocol for the first time.

“Gimme your hand,” The Boy asked, holding out his own, with the hope that The Droid would mirror him.

He held out his hand.

The Boy placed his pencil on The Droid’s palm, and he closed the fingers.

“You should try drawing something, too!” The Boy suggested.

This was new to The Droid. He’d never been asked to _draw_ before.

He accessed his hard drive for shapes of humans.

The drawing he made of The Boy certainly lacked the charm that The Boy had whenever he drew, but it was somewhat realistic.

“You’re so good at this…!” The Boy breathed. He looked up at The Droid with wide eyes.

They continued like this, exchanging the sketchbook back and forth in the restroom, adding a new drawing with each passing.

Indeed, he found the sight pleasing.

At the end of the school day, as the sun was setting over the mountain, The Droid exited the school, feeling, for once, _happy_. He had made a new friend.

Or so he thought.

He saw The Boy sitting on a bus bench, his back facing The Droid. A group of other younglings from class crowded around him. They were pointing and laughing at something The Boy drew in his sketchbook.

The Droid didn’t want to bother The Boy when he was with all the other younglings.

But The Boy was his only friend.

The Droid straightened up, making himself even taller than he already was, and tried to approach his friend. Surely the other younglings wouldn’t throw mudballs at him this time.

As he approached The Boy, however, he noticed a portion of the drawing.

It was of The Droid. Covered in mud. Completely blackened except for the whites of his ocular receptors.

At the top of the page, from what The Droid could see, were the words “Dirty D”

The Droid didn’t need to see any more of this. Not while the younglings were laughing at the drawing, and not while The Boy smiled proudly at his latest creation.

_Probability of the drawing being meant to disparage his dignity: 95%._

_Probability of said drawing being created only for the eyes of the sentient younglings rather than him: 99%._

_Probability of additional drawings in The Boy’s sketchbook making fun of him: 73%._

_Probability of the remaining younglings using this as an affirmation to their mud-throwing behavior: 100%._

_Probability of The Boy actually seeing him as a friend: 2%._

_Probability of The Boy defending him from said mud-throwing younglings: 0.50%._

Human younglings were _indeed_ the worst.

The Droid did _not_ find the sight pleasing.

His arm snapped forward between the gaps of the younglings and yanked at the offending page, tearing it from the spiral binding of The Boy’s sketchbook.

Everyone stopped and turned, staring up at The Droid as he crumpled the page in his hand.

The younglings erupted with laughter, pointing at The Droid.

“It’s just like your drawing!” a Twi’lek youngling cried out in a fit of giggles.

“It’s totally like your drawing!” a Chiss youngling responded, ribbing The Boy with his elbow.

The Droid looked down at The Boy, and The Boy had a shy smile on his face as he reached up to try and take the drawing back.

But no, The Droid refused to let him have the drawing back.

He stepped over them and started to run back to his tram at the base of the mountainside.

The Droid truly _was_ alone.

As the tram slowly crawled its way up the cables, along the height of the mountainside, a thought suddenly occurred to The Droid: his only programmed function was to maintain the wind turbines.

 _But for what purpose?_ He thought.

He remembered what The Droid That Came Before Him had told him: _To keep the darkness away._

As The Droid accessed his memory bank, he tried to recall a single day where he was free of harassment from the sentient villagers.

He came to the conclusion that the darkness wasn’t the black, dusty fog outside the village grounds; rather, it was contained within the confines of the village itself.

When The Droid got home, he threw the crumpled sketchbook page onto the floor, and walked away to recharge his batteries.

The next morning, The Droid defied his programming for the first time.

As he woke from his sleep mode, he watched as the wind turbines drain themselves completely of power, and the blades slowed to a stop.

 _I failed to keep the darkness away_ , The Droid declared to himself. _It was already within them all._ His circuits surged slightly as his empathy system continued to corrupt, re-writing itself with each memory he recalled of the mistreatment he experienced at the hands of the villagers.

_They might as well be covered in their darkness on the outside as well._

He looked out his front door as the black, dusty fog loomed over the village, no longer being blown back by the turbines.

The rooftops and the sentients below became covered in dirty soot. He could hear the screaming from the younglings, and the cries from the adults. Panic started to ring out in the streets.

He found the sight pleasing.

The Droid sat back in comfort. He didn’t require clean air, because he didn’t need to breathe. He could survive in conditions like this.

Everyone else could suffer.

After some time, though, he heard banging at his front door.

Who in their right mind would find it logical to come up to see him? No one _ever_ did.

_Probability that it’s an angry sentient attempting to confront him to demand that the turbines be powered back on: 100%._

_Probability that the exchange would be of any benefit to him: 0%._

The Droid ignored it.

But the banging didn’t stop.

“Open up! Please…” a voice cried out between coughing fits.

The Droid recognized the voice as belonging to The Boy.

“What do you want?” The Droid said from the other side, refusing to open the door.

The Boy coughed and hacked for a little while before crying out, “I wanted to make sure you’re okay! It’s really dusty outside! Your joints might be damaged!”

The Droid paused and considered The Boy’s tone of voice.

_Probability that The Boy is genuinely concerned for his well-being: 85%._

_Probability that The Boy is alone: 100%._

_Probability that The Boy is aware that their altercation is the reason for wind turbine failure: 10%._

_…_

_Probability that The Boy still thinks of him as a friend: 94%._

The Droid opened the door and found The Boy on all fours, covering his mouth with his jacket sleeve as he continued to cough and hack. Seeing the door open, The Boy crawled in desperately and gasped for clean air as the door shut.

The Boy looked up at The Droid when he caught his breath. “Are you alright?”

“I am clean.” The Droid responded simply.

He stood up. “I’m sorry you thought my drawing was ugly.”

“Your drawing was disparaging and an affront to my dignity,” The Droid responded. His speech pattern had a hint of anger to them.

The Boy looked up at him, blinking, confused at the sudden use of big words he hadn’t yet learned.

“Your drawing made fun of me,” he explained. “And I didn’t like it. I thought you were my friend.”

The Boy continued to look up at him, blinking, still confused. “Of course we’re friends. We’re the Dirty Duo!”

“What?”

The Boy eyed the crumpled sketchbook page, still on the floor, and tried to flatten it. He held it up for The Droid.

He saw the drawing of himself, completely dirty.

But he had missed the side of the drawing, where The Boy had drawn himself covered in mud, and equally dirty.

The Droid had only seen himself in the drawing and thought that The Boy titled it “Dirty Droid”.

It was, in fact, titled “Dirty Duo”.

The two of them were depicted as playing in the mud together.

Slowly, The Droid’s empathy system re-wrote itself yet again, cleaning itself up of the corruption and starting anew.

The Droid lowered the sketchbook page to look at The Boy as he realized his mistake. “I have made a mistake,” The Droid said. “I’m sorry for hurting you all.”

“Hurting us all?” The Boy asked.

The Droid motioned for The Boy to follow him to a connecting house where the main wind turbine was. “Watch this,” The Droid instructed, and The Boy watched as he recharged the power of the wind turbine. The Boy continued to follow The Droid as he approached the base of each wind turbine, charging them each and bringing them back to life. Slowly, the sun peeked out from the black, dusty fog, and The Boy could see the light again, the sky clear once more.

“You do this every morning?” The Boy asked with amazement.

The Droid nodded. “I thought humanity didn’t want me, so I gave up on humanity.

“It turns out I was wrong. I have much to learn.”

The Boy continued to watch The Droid recharge the remaining turbines, not saying a word.

When The Droid finally recharged the final wind turbine, the sky over the village had cleared, and the villagers sang with relief as they cleaned up the soot that covered them all.

“Can I come visit you tomorrow morning?” The Boy asked suddenly.

The Droid tilted his head. “Why? We see each other at school.”

“I want to help you recharge the wind things,” he responded, gesturing at the tall structures along the mountain’s peak.

“It’s a task I was programmed to do. You are a sentient who has no programming. This is not something you do.”

“We’re the Dirty Duo,” The Boy reminded him. “And that means we gotta help each other!”

_Probability that The Boy is far too young, far too short, and far too weak to contribute significantly to the programmed task: 99.5%._

_Probability that The Boy genuinely wants to help: 99%._

_Probability that The Boy will accept “No” for an answer: 0.01%._

The Droid ran a scenario in his head in which The Boy would arrive every morning to help him.

_Probability that The Boy’s presence becomes a detriment to completing the programmed task: 0%._

He accepted the offer.

And so, each morning, The Boy would come up before the sun, and knocked on The Droid’s front door.

And, each morning, The Droid would let him in, and they would work together to recharge the turbines as the sun peeked over the mountain tops that protected the village from the black, dusty fog on the other side of The Droid’s home.

Each morning, this routine continued, The Boy and The Droid, the Dirty Duo, working together.

The Droid found this sight to be the most pleasing thing he had ever experienced.

* * *

“Galen? We’ve landed,” said Lyra Erso, quietly, as she entered the area in which her husband was entertaining her daughter.

Galen looked down at his daughter Jyn, who was now asleep from hearing her favorite bedtime story.

Nodding at Lyra and smiling softly, Galen brushed back some loose strands of hair from Jyn’s face, and placed a small kiss on the top of her head before scooping her up into his arms. Jyn stirred, but Galen shushed his precious 8-year old and patted her on the back as he and Lyra quietly walked down the ramp to their new home.

“Do you think she’ll get along with the other settlers on this planet?” Lyra asked as she placed a hand on Jyn’s back. Her eyes looked up at Galen with concern.

“I believe she will. Our Stardust will never be shy, just like her mother,” he soothed.

Lyra shot him a look. “You mean you’re afraid she’ll pick a fight, just like her mother?”

Galen walked a little faster with Jyn in tow to prevent getting pinched in the arm by his wife. “At least we know she won’t be bullied!”

* * *

 

“Do you think I’m gonna make a lot of friends?” Jyn asked worriedly as Galen worked on her braids.

“My Stardust, you will do just fine,” he responded nonchalantly, tying the elastic at the base of the second braid.

Jyn could hear her mother calling her to come out and eat breakfast.

“Coming!” she yelled, and she started to leave her room, but was stopped by Galen grabbing her hand.

She turned around. “Yes, Papa?”

There was something in his eyes that understood that today marked a new start for her, and her family, but there was a hint of sadness. Perhaps he, too, was afraid that she wasn’t going to make a lot of friends, and she started to frown.

“Papa?”

Galen opened his arms and she instinctively ran into them for a hug.

“Everything we do, we do it to protect you. Say you understand.”

Jyn nodded, feeling the warmth in his tight embrace. “I understand.”

She heard him sigh heavily. “I love you, my Stardust.”

So she squeezed even tighter, as tight as her tiny arms could possibly stand it. “I love you too, Papa.”

* * *

Jyn stepped out of her home and witnessed Lah’mu for the first time with her very eyes.

It was so… _black_.

The black sands were just a little coarse, and made crunching sounds under her boots. She hopped on it a couple of times as she adjusted the weight of her knapsack, and giggled at the sensation.

Just because it was black didn’t mean it was dangerous.

Just like The Droid.

Every step Jyn took on her way to the nearby village, not far off from the beach she lived on, she relished the black sands under her feet. _Crunch, crunch, crunch_.

Pretty soon, however, the sands disappeared and, in its place, dark damp dirt, beaten down to a walkway. Green surrounded her, and she smiled widely at the sight. “It’s just like my eyes!” she giggled, turning to the droid her parents sent with her as she walked to school.

The droid accompanying her didn’t _say_ a word, but instead decided to beep brightly in acknowledgement. It was easier for her that way.

Jyn and the droid approached the base of a mountain, high up. She tilted her head up as high as her neck would let her, and she noticed turbines lining around the tops.

 _Wind turbines?_ _she_ thought.

Just like in the story.

Excited for what might be on the other side, she ran through the large tunnel that was carved out at the base of the mountain, and the droid sped after her, now finally deciding to shout “Jyn! Come back! Stop running!”

Jyn’s eyes widened when she got out to the other side.

The village was simple, with structures almost like she imagined in the bedtime story her father would tell her when she had a hard time falling asleep. The roads were better paved, and the huge mountain looked more like a crater as she realized that it circled all the way around the village, creating a natural wall from the outside elements.

Her smile could not have been wider than it was already.

If her father was constantly trying to protect her, what better way to protect his Stardust than to put her in the very place she loved hearing about every night?

Suddenly she heard a voice.

“Kay, I don’t see why you have to live all the way up at the top of the mountain,” a young boy said. Jyn noticed his dark hair first, then his face, which was as chubby as her own. He looked a little bit older and a little bit taller than Jyn, though, and as she looked at his backpack, she realized that they were going to be attending the same school. She witnessed him climbing out of a tram suspended by cables that ran up the side of the mountain walls, followed by an actual, true-to-life, KX-series droid.

She nearly jumped back when the droid spoke, his voice more eloquent and formal than she was accustomed to. “Cassian,” the droid said as he finally climbed out of the cramped tram, the vehicle swaying back and forth by the sudden change in weight. “I’ve told you time and again that it isn’t necessary for you to come up and visit me. I’m programmed to wake up right on the dot, every morning, to monitor all the wind turbines, before coming down for the day.”

“I’m just saying,” the older boy- _Cassian, I think_ \- responded as the pair of them walked past Jyn and towards the school. “That kind of stuff is better to do when you’ve got a friend with you!”

She saw Cassian yawn, and the KX-series droid- _Kay, was it?_ \- created a muffled sound similar to a sigh. “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, it’s going to be difficult to keep being friends with you if you’re so tired and unfocused at school that your parents ground you for it…I won’t be able to hang out with you after school anymore if you keep it up! And you know you’re the only friend I have.”

Cassian craned his neck to look up at him with a resigned look on his face. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop visiting you in the morning before school. But that definitely means we should be hanging out after school.”

“Very well, Cassian.”

Jyn squinted and noticed the spiral-bounding of a sketchbook sticking out from Cassian’s backpack.

 _The Boy and The Droid!_ Jyn thought to herself, and she looked back at the droid that watched over her.

“I’m going to be friends with them,” Jyn announced proudly, pointing at the boy and the droid up ahead.

The droid beeped a sound of confusion before activating her language programming. “Friends? With a droid?”

She shrugged. “Why not? If The Droid from Papa’s story can be friends with The Boy, and that boy over there can be friends with the KX droid, then so can I!” She started walking away, but as she looked ahead and noticed the gap between her, Cassian, and Kay, she picked up the pace and ran while looking back at the droid she came with.

“I’ll see you after school!” Jyn called out, not bothering to wait for a response as she turned back to run after the two.

* * *

Cassian was walking with his best friend, K2SO, to school one morning when he heard a voice cry out from behind him:

“Hey! Wait up!”

When Cassian first met Jyn, he heard those words and turned around to see a girl running towards him with all the excitement and energy in the world.


End file.
